Wrist stiffness and Pain

I have really tight and sore wrists....I am doing foundation 1 but I feel like my tight wrists are holding me back...I have good pushing strength (I can do 12 full range ring dips) but all my planche work is held back by my wrists... 

So my question is...should I avoid doing foundation for now and really work on getting loose and flexible wrists for a month or so and then go back to foundation or work on wrist flexibility along side continuing with foundations?

Hi @Mike Ross,

By any chance you have Handstand One Course? The HS1 course will help you address those deficiencies. I would advise to that you work on F1 and HS1. 

I have the H1 course but I had to stop because of neck issues doing head stands.....I am doing the wrist warm up which is good but should I stop putting loads on my wrists doing things like one arm planks and kee doing the wrist mobility everyday until I gain ROM or keep doing F1 fully alongside the wrist exercises from H1

If you are having a hard time with the one arm planks, maybe it is not currently on your level yet. Have you posted for form check on your mastery from the other previous elements. (PE1-PE3). Wrist stretches can be done everyday but the wrist strengthening exercise needs some time to recover to strengthen your wrists. Never train your wrists if you feel pain.

I can hold the one arm plank for 5 sets at the mastery level no problem but my wrists are really stiff so I'm not going to be able to do somethings like Planch leans because of a lack of wrist mobility

Hi @Mike Ross,

Can you post a video of your One Arm Planks and your Planche Lean attempts. 

It does take a long time for stiff wrists to improve. I would be doing the wrist stretches daily. Be patient as it can take 1-2 years for them to get back to full ROM.

So do I stay stuck on the same foundation exercises until my wrists are more mobile or is there something else I can do while I do the wrist stretches daily...the one arm plank I managed to do the mastery but the load on my wrists was a lot and I tried and my wrists aren't ready for planche leans (it feels redundant to just keep doing one arm planks for  a year

I am currently training for the Plank on fists because my wrists cannot handle the pressure of flat hands on the ground, no matter the angle. It allows me to progress and to develop fist strength/mobility while patiently working on my flat hands mobility (using a wall for the moment).

If you have this problem for Planche work, you probably have the same for the horizontal HBP exercises (Push-Up, Pseudo Planche Push-Up in Foundation One). My recommendation would be to do your Push-Ups on mini parallettes.

Note that mastery level does require these flat hands on the ground.The solutions that I propose are only a means to this end, by giving you the required time to build your mobility.

This is an interesting post for me as I also suffer from wrist pain, especially the right as I broke it a few years back and it it can be quite intense at times. For the planche lean I have to turn my hands right out to the sides (like three o clock) as I could not in a million years have them facing forward as the pain would be just too much and the mobility so little.

I don´t know if that is acceptable tho, as I have seen in the past that the hands can be in any position and be acceptable, is this right? Or should they only face forward?

1 minute ago, Marcus Patterson said:

This is an interesting post for me as I also suffer from wrist pain, especially the right as I broke it a few years back and it it can be quite intense at times. For the planche lean I have to turn my hands right out to the sides (like three o clock) as I could not in a million years have them facing forward as the pain would be just too much and the mobility so little.

 

I don´t know if that is acceptable tho, as I have seen in the past that the hands can be in any position and be acceptable, is this right? Or should they only face forward?

 

That is correct, turning them out is fine. The only note there is to avoid turning to fingers backwards due to the added strain on the elbows/biceps

On 30 August 2016 at 0:21 PM, Mike Ross said:

So do I stay stuck on the same foundation exercises until my wrists are more mobile or is there something else I can do while I do the wrist stretches daily...the one arm plank I managed to do the mastery but the load on my wrists was a lot and I tried and my wrists aren't ready for planche leans (it feels redundant to just keep doing one arm planks for  a year

I would do the planche leans with a small lean so you are working in a pain free range. To speed up the process of improving your wrists you would benefit from soft tissue releases and joint mobilisation from a health professional. If you do not have access to a health professional you will need to do alot of self massage of the forearms.